It was another cold morning, but at least the rain from the night before was over. This was one of the few trailheads that was on a paved road with a paved parking lot (which makes for easier driving, but maybe not so great sleeping at the trailhead). I started out at 5:35 when it was nearly dark. The trail started out pretty steep and eased up a bit in the middle before getting steeper again. I passed a group on the way - by now I was becoming an uphill machine - at least for me. Near the top things got a little more interesting as I tried to stay off of the icy rocks and snow and on the dry rocks - mostly this meant staying where the sun had already hit. I was sort of regretting not bringing the microspikes but I didn't really need them. I made it to the 14,196 foot summit at 9:05 and spent a good bit of time there catching up on communication (I had cell service here) and taking pics and letting some of the ice melt off the rocks. Plenty of other people came up to the summit in that time.
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That afternoon I went to town for water and to use the library. Then I headed out to Mt Princeton. This time my radiator held together. I overshot the 2wd parking area and headed up the 4wd road. Once I was on it turning around would have been difficult so I white-knuckled my way up to an area by a communications tower. There I was able to park and level up my truck. It was a much nicer spot and saved me some hiking, but if the road was much worse or I met some traffic it would have been bad. That evening there was a large thunderstorm.
Summary of August 31st, one 14er, about 9 miles and 4400 feet of elevation gain. It went fairly quickly heading up but I spent over 2 hours on the summit. Some icy rocks and snow.